Welcome to the AP English Online Annotation Project!
What makes a speech powerful?
This is what rhetoric is all about--not just the specific features of a text that make it powerful, but also CAREFULLY ANALYZING the language choices that a writer/ speaker makes so that the text becomes meaningful and effective.
As we close our study of rhetoric and style, you will examine how powerful rhetoric is involved in some of the world's most famous and influential speeches. Each student (or pair of students) will read and annotate one of the speeches below, paying attention to specific rhetorical strategies and the effect they have on the reader/ listener.
Most of the above speeches can be found at the "Top 100 Speeches" section of www.AmericanRhetoric.com, where you can also hear audio of the speeches.
EXAMPLE:
from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845)
If at any one time of my life more than another, I was made to drink the bitterest dregs of slavery, that time was during the first six months of my stay with Mr. Covey. We were worked in all weathers. It was never too hot or too cold; it could never rain, blow, hail, or snow, too hard for us to work in the field. Work, work, work was scarcely more the order of the day than of the night.
What makes a speech powerful?
This is what rhetoric is all about--not just the specific features of a text that make it powerful, but also CAREFULLY ANALYZING the language choices that a writer/ speaker makes so that the text becomes meaningful and effective.
As we close our study of rhetoric and style, you will examine how powerful rhetoric is involved in some of the world's most famous and influential speeches. Each student (or pair of students) will read and annotate one of the speeches below, paying attention to specific rhetorical strategies and the effect they have on the reader/ listener.
Most of the above speeches can be found at the "Top 100 Speeches" section of www.AmericanRhetoric.com, where you can also hear audio of the speeches.
EXAMPLE:
from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845)
If at any one time of my life more than another, I was made to drink the bitterest dregs of slavery, that time was during the first six months of my stay with Mr. Covey. We were worked in all weathers. It was never too hot or too cold; it could never rain, blow, hail, or snow, too hard for us to work in the field. Work, work, work was scarcely more the order of the day than of the night.